Thursday, 16 October 2008

European PS Store update for 16th October

The update has arrived, although a little later than the usual '11:30 on a Thursday' routine.

So what were we waiting for?

Two good demos, some Eye of Judgement goodness, a new golf course and the usual Rock Band/videos/themes mix.

For all your trophy whores, remember the Eye of Judgement set 3 includes some shiny new hardware for you to get your hands on. And yes, I still refuse to spell it without an 'e' - I'm British don't you know.

Friday, 29 August 2008

Crytek talks consoles and PS3's "future possibilities"

Mention Crytek's Crisis on the interweb and two constant news points will immediately resurface. One, its power hungry demands practically held your rig for ransom if you wanted to run it at the fidelity the German based developers recommended. Two, considering people with high-end rigs usually aren't short of some disposable income, paradoxically, most people didn't actually pay for it.

While the first "issue" was not something Crytek felt any shame about, the piracy debacle has been seen as a key motivator for the studio's recent declaration of "console love".

Edge spoke with Crytek business manager Harald Seeley about the company's shift away from a predominantly PC focused model where he reiterates piracy was not the driving factor for the sea change. The delay it seems is more due to Crytek's internal processes not being ready to support a multiplatform release structure. Until now.

Despite some criticism about the story (and even gameplay) of Crisis, the game is universally accepted as a technical treat to the senses with Crytek's engineers definitely not falling into the "lazy developer" category. It's therefore interesting to note Seeley's honest answers regarding each console's challenges and some comments that may bode well for us PS3 acolytes.

Seeley explains that each console "brings with it certain advantages and certain limitations." While noting the 360's lack of a guaranteed hard-drive being present (therefore preventing the ability of pushing assets to external storage to speed up in-game load times) the much heralded single memory allocation makes for easier development. In contrast, the PS3's complex architecture poses design challenges but its multiple cores "may open up more programming possibilities". PS3Attitude's interpretation of this statement is "Yes, the PS3 is a difficult beast to master but it may hold greater future potential." Remember, our words.

The "limited memory" of both consoles does force them however "to be very creative in our approaches."

Crytek's upcoming African based FPS Far Cry 2 will be released on the PS3 this fall.

Thursday, 28 August 2008

European PS Store update for 28th August

This weeks European PS Store update is a little less than I expected, but The Last Guy should tie me over for a few hours, and with the new Warhawk expansion I really need to get in there and see how bad I really am.

Sunday, 16 March 2008

Play.com Live 08; Day Two wrap-up

As you're blissfully aware of by now, PS3 Attitude were at Play.com Live 08 to cover the event and find out as much as possible about forthcoming PS3 titles as we could.

Day Two saw much of the same action as Day One. The fact is, the show was relatively small. Having said that, this was the first ever Play.com Live event and I'm sure they'll take feedback from this to ensure it's better in years to come. The UK certainly needs a single retail event right now.

We did get a chance to look round the areas we missed on the first day, which included watching the video footage of Ghostbusters and Prototype. Unfortunately, neither title was available to play. Vivendi did, however, have the Bourne Conspiracy for gamers to get their hands on. The people I spoke to were impressed with the gameplay, which combines close-quarters combat with third-person shooting and driving.

We also finally got a chance to play with GT5: Prologue properly using the new Logitech wheel. Playing the London track in a new Mini, the graphics are as stunning as you'd all expect. It's the wheel that really grabbed me. The accuracy and feedback you get from the steering wheel is almost perfect. If only the pedals had a little more 'bite' to them...

The highlight of the day for us was interviewing Patrick and L-P about Far Cry 2. Out of everything we saw at the show, this title really impressed us the most. We'll have much more on this survival-FPS in the not-too-distant future.

We haven't mentioned the additional entertainment across both days. There were number of great music acts on across the event. On the first day, Vincent Vincent and the Villains were great, as were 'headliners' We Are Scientists today. In addition there were loads of competitions with over £90k worth of prizes up for grabs, and to promote FIFA Street 3 EA brought in a World Record street football juggler doing the most insane keepy-uppy tricks I've seen. And of course there were the usual array of unnervingly good looking people giving out bags of goodies to the punters.

So - Play.com Live is over for this year. There will be more from us over the next couple of days, so keep checking back. We have a stack of pictures and an extra video to put up, plus we'll be running a little competition for all our readers.

Play.com Live 08; Exclusive Far Cry 2 developer interview

Direct from Play.com Live 08, we just spent 12 minutes or so with Patrick Redding and Louis-Pierre Pharand about their forthcoming FPS title, Far Cry 2.

The few details we know from the demonstration at Play.com Live leave us wanting more. Watch our two-part interview to discover more about the features that really make this FPS shine out above the competition.

Our thanks to Patrick and L-P for their time, and we look forward to finding out more about this intriguing survivalist-shooter in the near future.

Saturday, 15 March 2008

Play.com Live 08; Day One wrap-up

Wembley Stadium played host to the inaugural Play.com Live show today, with another day of the event coming tomorrow.

PS3 Attitude were there to cover the event and whilst there was a lack of items we felt needed 'live' updates, there were some highlights for PS3 fans.

The bottom floor of the event was almost exclusively Xbox 360 hardware. And yet there were still new builds of multi-platform products to be played. The latest Soul Calibur IV was there and looks very slick indeed.

Playing as one of three characters - Taki, Cassandra or Mitsurugi - it is exactly what you would expect from a Soul Calibur title. Only this time the graphics have taken a real ramp up since the PS2 incarnation. Everything looks pixel perfect.

Rainbox Six Vegas 2 was also present and was another title that seemed to deliver exactly what was expected of it. A straight sequel, and whilst that's not a bad thing it also doesn't appear on the surface to bring anything new to the franchise.

Moving upstairs marked the shift from white to black as everything became PS3-oriented. Immediately to the right was the Rock Band setup from EA. With still no release date for the UK, I was surprised at the skill of some of the players, the best of which were chosen to battle on the music stage later in the day for a complete Rock Band kit each.

Sony's stand was very well put together with some impressive 'pods' set up for GT5: Prologue. Around the driving area Sony had a number of screens showing videos from LittleBigPlanet and God of War: Chains of Olympus for PSP. In addition, they had playable demos of Time Crisis 4 and the new Buzz! game.

We covered Time Crisis 4's FPS functionality earlier today. In the standard game mode it doesn't offer anything new, but the new GunCon 3 is a remarkable piece of equipment that we expect will be made use of in the future to much better effect.

Buzz! now comes with wireless controllers, although your old wired ones will do just fine. The game has taken a real step up graphically as you'd expect, but the new game modes are a lot more fun and I can see this version being a massive hit for families. I played against three other players (and won with 5,000 points - woo hoo!) and it really helped me to forget just how much my feet were hurting!

The latest build of Haze was also available to play upstairs and although it doesn't look like it has graphically moved on from the build of Haze we played at GameCity, it's still as exciting to us as before. In the deluge of FPS titles available for the PS3, I can see Haze being one of those that raises its head above the rest. The responses I got from other players seemed to suggest they thought so too.

Capcom showed the Street Fighter IV trailer and had Lost Planet set up to play, so I'm afraid we didn't spend much time with that.

On the third floor were a few third-party stands, such as the memory manufacturer SanDisk and Corgi, who had light sabres and other merchandise for sale. I was fortunate enough to meet my favourite ever Dr. Who - Tom Baker - who was being as effervescent as ever. On the next stand was Robert Llewellyn of Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge fame who I shared a few comedy moments with.

The e-sports section of the show saw one lucky PES 2008 player walk away with £50,000 in cold, hard cash. The Soul Calibur IV competition had a Dodge car as the prize. Certainly Play.com seemed to have lined up some pretty decent prizes for their first show, and it's good to see e-sports becoming more serious and gaining better rewards.

The two outstanding moments for me were the actual gameplay video from Codemasters of Race Driver: GRID, and the demonstration from the guys who are making Far Cry 2.

Race Driver: GRID looks amazing, but it is the little things that make a difference. The environments you race in and the detail in the crowd and surroundings are superb, but also subtle. Unlike some racing games I've played, the crowd don't all move in unison as if they're connected by a metal rod, and they're not cardboard cut outs either. It's this subtlety that makes all the difference.

Far Cry 2 will be coming to the PS3, and it looks like a serious step up for FPS titles. The real selling point is the natural weather and enemy AI. Virtual wind blows the palm fronds (which are all destructible) and also allows you to set fires that blow towards your enemies, helping you gain cover and create a distraction. The world (which is 50Km in size!) gradually moves through a 24-hour cycle. If you spend long enough, you'll see the sun set. If you want to perform a mission at night, you can sleep for a while and tackle it in the dark.

We'll have more on Race Driver: GRID and Far Cry 2 in the near future.

So - on to Day Two. We'll cover anything that needs a quick update live from the show, but come back same time, same place tomorrow for a wrap-up.